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/ 8 February 2006
It would normally have been seen as a routine courtesy. But when Bolivia’s newly elected populist President, Evo Morales, received a congratulatory telephone call from the White House last week, he confessed he was surprised.The US has made no secret of its concerns over Morales’s plans to legalise coca cultivation and his fraternal links with Hugo Chávez.
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/ 8 February 2006
The World Trade Organisation on Tuesday night ruled that Europe had broken international trade rules by blocking the import of genetically modified food, in a decision United States trade officials hailed as a victory. The WTO found that Europe had imposed a de facto ban on GM food imports for six years from 1998 which violated trade agreements.
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/ 8 February 2006
The New South Wales Waratahs are looking for a more expansive game to go one better in this year’s new-look Super 14 rugby series. The Waratahs lost to the all-conquering Canterbury Crusaders 35-25 in their first Super 12 final last season and under coach Ewen McKenzie they are bullish about winning this year’s provincial tournament.
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/ 8 February 2006
Iran has much of what it needs to build a nuclear bomb and lacks only the know-how to put the pieces together, the United States State Department said on Tuesday. The comments by department spokesperson Sean McCormack constituted the second worrying assessment by the United States as it stepped up efforts to mobilise support for UN action against Tehran.
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/ 8 February 2006
In 10 years of Super 12 rugby no South African team was able to capture the southern hemisphere’s most sought-after provincial trophy. Injuries to key players have already set the five sides back, while the increased workload on the Australasian leg of the tournament means home fixtures have become even more important than in the past.
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/ 8 February 2006
New Zealand, one of the few developed countries to allow imports of second-hand vehicles from Japan, is becoming a dumping ground for worn-out old cars, according to the Motor Industry Association. Although more than 103 400 new vehicles were sold in the country of 4,1-million people last year, the total fleet is getting older and older.
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/ 8 February 2006
Despite laws governing fireworks in South Africa, licensed wholesale dealers abuse the system and illegally sell fireworks to hawkers. "Street hawkers easily get access to fireworks by purchasing a limited quantity for [their] own use from a retail dealer, and then illegally sell it to passers-by," says a police spokesperson.
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/ 8 February 2006
Vote counting began in Haiti on Tuesday, in some areas by candlelight, after elections that were free of the political violence many had feared but were marked by stampedes that left four dead. As the counting was under way in some centres late on Tuesday, voters elsewhere still waited their turn to fill ballots out at the small cardboard voting booths.
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/ 8 February 2006
Sheriff’s officials said on Tuesday they were working on a computerised plan to identify and isolate the most dangerous jail inmates but warned it would not prevent all future violence in an overcrowded system that exploded into deadly racial riots.
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/ 8 February 2006
Fossil hunters in China say they have found the earliest known forerunner of the Tyrannosaurus rex, the mighty flesh-ripping dinosaur beloved of children and Hollywood. Uncovered in Wucaiwan in the western province of Xinjiang, the species has been dubbed Guanlong wucaii — which means ”crowned dragon of the five-coloured rocks”.